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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline
Central and East European
November 25, 2002
President Leonid Kuchma on 23 November addressed the nation on television
with a speech devoted to the famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, which, according
to various estimates, claimed 5-10 million lives, Ukrainian media reported.
Kuchma said Ukraine should insist that the world recognize the 1932-33
famine as an act of Bolshevik genocide against the Ukrainian people.
"The famine became a national catastrophe. In 1932-33 alone, one-fifth of
Ukraine's rural population was killed," Kuchma said.
"This [act of] terror through famine was a cynical response of the Bolshevik
authorities to the resistance of the Ukrainian peasantry to total
collectivization
and to the policy of transforming free farmers into silent slaves."
Kuchma said a "grand memorial to the victims of famine" should be built in
Kyiv and smaller monuments in other parts of Ukraine. JM
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/11/3-cee/cee-251102.asp
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